Posted on 1/5/2005, 11:32:55 PM by aculeus
A mother photographed rushing towards a tsunami wave as everyone else fled has survived the disaster along with the children she was trying to save.
Karin Svard feared that her husband and three sons would die as they made their way from the sea in Krabi, Thailand, but it was confirmed yesterday that the Swedish police officer and all her family were alive.
Describing her action, she said: "I had to try to save my children - nothing was going to stop me. Terror was coming up inside me. I could feel it. But I was so focused - I just started running to my family.
"I could see this white wall coming to me and it was coming faster. I did not care. I was looking at my children. I wanted to hold them and care for them."
Mrs Svard was then engulfed by water and washed up on to higher ground.
"By this time I thought my family were dead," she said. "My life was over as far as I could see it. My children were taken away from me."
However, she was later reunited with her husband, Lars, and sons Anton, 14, Filip, 11, and Viktor, 10, when she found them clinging together also on higher ground.
She said: "I rushed to them and yelled, `Thank God you are alive.' We hugged each other. All around us people were shouting for their families and I could feel their fear."
As her story was revealed yesterday, the Foreign Office confirmed that a total of 40 Britons had died.
They included two babies, a boy aged two months and a girl of six months, who are believed to be the youngest British victims.
The youngest is the grandson of the television star Eric Richard, who plays Sgt Bob Cryer in the ITV series The Bill. The baby is thought to have been swept out of the arms of his father, Richard Smith, on a beach in Sri Lanka.
The child's parents were both hurt but survived. A neighbour of The Bill star, whose real name is Eric Smith, said the actor, of Beckenham, Kent, was distraught at the loss of his grandson.
The father of the six-month-old girl, Ruby Rose, described yesterday how the baby and her mother, Samantha Fayet, from London, were swept away.
French-born Patrice, 37, said the family had been enjoying a "perfect day" at their beach hut in a Thai resort just north of Khao Lak.
He saw people running from the shore in "fear and panic" and grabbed his wife, who works for Kate Moss, the model, and daughter to run for shelter.
He said: "I pushed Sam in front of me. She was gripping on to the tree. I wrapped myself around her and the tree, with Ruby sandwiched between.
"Ruby was screaming and gasping for breath but it was our only chance. The waves just got bigger and bigger and more powerful. I was holding them both but it was too hard, too hard."
Eventually the force of the water carried both of them away. Patrice was washed three miles up the coast.
Sally and Nick Riddle, of Nutbourne, West Sussex, whose 21-year-old daughter Holly also died, said last night that she was preparing to study Portuguese to teach English in Brazil after travelling the world for three years.
The couple had been having breakfast at the Mukdara Beach Resort, Kolak, Thailand, with Holly and her seven-year-old sister, Maisie, when the wave struck. They last saw Holly jump on to the roof of a nearby building.
Her mother said: "I tried to reach out to her but I couldn't. I was saying I loved her and she was saying, `Help, what shall I do?' Then the water must have just swept her away.
"At first I thought Holly had got to safety somehow. We made our way to the higher ground in reception and then we saw her body."
A mother of two from Scotland is waiting to hear the fate of three generations of her family.
Indonesian-born Zubaidah McKenzie-Said, 50, from Holyrood, Edinburgh, said her brother Ahmed, 60, and sister Sofia, 55, were among 18 relatives missing.
Many of Mrs McKenzie-Said's relatives live in Sigli, a small town in Sumatra's Aceh province.
She said she had tried to contact the few people in the town with telephones in their homes.
"I cannot contact anybody and no one has contacted me; nobody can bring me good news," she said. "I'm just waiting."
She also feared that one of two sons, Djunaidy, 34, who was touring south-east Asia, had been caught up in the disaster - but he had called to say he was safe.
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Karin Svard at home with her husband and sons
This article seems not to have been posted previously.
Where's the picture of her running toward the wave?
It's so sad to hear stories about these people loosing the people they love, nice to hear a good one for a change.
BTTT
If it was posted previously - I missed it. So thanks for the fortunate closure on that picture. I had saved it on my hard drive as a reminder.
ping!
Thanks, thank God they made it.
I was wondering about this. Would it make more sense to meet the wave off the shore, away from the massive debris field it generates when hitting land? It's not so much the wave that kills you, but the garbage cans, mailboxes, flying structural debris, cars, and anything else not nailed down into ten foot footings of concrete. It's like emptying your kids toybox into your washing machine and turning it on. Anything in there is going to smash one another into bits. At least if you hit the wave off the shore, you only deal with the debris once the wave begins to recede, which is with a whole lot less force.
A married European, with three children who thanked God for her deliverance and that of her family's safety...hmmmm.
She defies social convention in Europe and beats the survival odds in Thailand. She's one lucky lady, but she should spend her next vacation in nice, safe Las Vegas.
WOW! Very cool.
Wow... just... wow.
By God's grace, they got out alive.
wonderful news. I have no idea how they survived.
Yes, if you're far *enough* off shore. But if you just swim out a bit as it comes in, for example, you'll be close enough to be washed back onshore with all the flooding, and have one of the longest "rides" of all (and have more opportunities to be harmed collision, undertow, and debris), compared to people who got swept up in it a bit further inland from shore.
On the other hand, if you're *way* out to sea, you probably won't even feel it as it passes you -- in deep water tsunamis are just a ripple on the surface. It's only when they get to shallower water that they "hump up".
Let's all pray for the poor couple whose baby was swept away. God Almighty, give those people comfort and peace. What a nightmare: to have the ocean sweep your baby out of your arms.
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